Magni M24 Orion: Colorado Gyrocopter Training and Discovery Flights

The Magni M24 Orion is the aircraft most people picture when they picture a modern gyroplane: a fully enclosed, side-by-side two-seater with a composite fuselage and wide panoramic glass. It is built by Magni Gyro of Italy, flown for training and touring on several continents, and it is the machine you climb into for a gyroplane discovery flight in Colorado. If you have wondered whether learning to fly one is within reach, this is the aircraft, the field, and the instructor that make it real.

What the M24 Orion actually is

A gyroplane flies on an unpowered rotor that spins from the air passing up through it, with an engine-driven propeller for thrust. The M24 wraps that layout in a closed cabin, which is the part that matters for a student. You are out of the wind and noise, you can talk to your instructor at a normal volume over the intercom, and a lesson does not end early because the weather turned cold. The side-by-side cabin is the other half of the case for it. In a tandem trainer the instructor sits behind you and points over your shoulder. Sitting beside you, an instructor can show you where to look, put a hand near a control, and read your inputs as you make them.

Specifications

These are the figures the aircraft is sold and flown on. The Orion is offered in the United States with a turbocharged, fuel-injected Rotax, and that engine choice is the one that earns its keep in Colorado, where field elevations and summer temperatures both work against climb performance.

Learning to fly it in Colorado

Colorado is a demanding place to teach any light aircraft and a good place to teach a gyroplane. The demand comes from altitude: a warm afternoon on the Front Range gives an aircraft the air of a much higher field, and a lot of trainers feel it. The turbocharged Orion holds its power up there, which is exactly why it fits the region. And the gyroplane itself likes the terrain. It needs very little runway, it handles wind better than almost any light aircraft, and it is content at the small, uncongested fields that a fixed-wing school finds limiting.

The home field is Vance Brand Airport (KLMO) in Longmont, three miles southwest of town and about a half hour north of Denver. It sits at 5,055 feet, it has no control tower, and it has a single 4,799-foot runway. For a student that adds up to a calmer place to learn than a busy metro airport: no tower sequencing to fight, room in the pattern, and airspace to spare for the slow, repeated circuits that early training is built on.

The instructor and the rates

Instruction at Longmont is with Tim Arter, a Sport Pilot gyroplane CFI who is night and tower endorsed. Training in a gyroplane starts with a discovery flight, which is a real lesson with a real instructor, not a ride. If you go on to train, that first flight counts toward your rating.

What the rating takes

Most people learning the M24 are working toward a Sport Pilot certificate with a gyroplane rating, the most direct license for this kind of flying. The time it takes depends less on the hourly rate than on how often you fly: students who come out weekly finish sooner and spend less overall than students who fly once a month and re-learn the last lesson each time. If you are weighing the whole picture, our guides on what gyroplane training costs and the license you need go through it in detail. When you are ready to compare instructors and schools beyond Longmont, the gyroplane flight school directory lists options by state.